>even the libertarians should be on board with this tax
No, Libertarians would not support this. The reason why there are empty properties is that there are capital controls so severe that it's more lucrative to buy a house (and not rent it) as a store of value than a currency/stock/precious asset (gold,bitcoin etc). A law -- which didn't account for the second-order detriments -- created this perversion in the market. Adding another law -- which again won't account for the second-order detriments -- is not going to fix it. Less is more, when it comes to economic law.
Enact a Land Value Tax. In a squeezed market like Vancouver most of the value in houses is the plot of land underneath them, not the "bricks & mortar". By taxing the value of the land rather than the property on top of it you won't penalize people for renovating or knocking down an old building and replacing it with a newer one. Hopefully the tax is high enough to put off speculators and bring prices to a more reasonable level (because massive swings in land value of 20% per year will increase the tax burden).
You're making a huge assumption that capital controls are the cause. It's more likely that people believe real estate is a better investment than currency, stocks, precious assets. Or perhaps they just want to diversify their holdings. I'm considering buying some investment real estate, and it has nothing to do with capital controls.
I think DD must be right, because there are funds like IYR (I don't know about Canadian equivalents) that would be a much less expensive way to get the same real estate market exposure, so the question is why isn't the money going there?
The Canadian government subsidizes home-ownership by not taxing the capital gains on a primary residence.
I know the article is about empty properties, but it's actually a lot more common to send your 18-year-old kid to study in Canada and wire him $1 million to buy a primary residence in his own name.
So what you're saying is... the rich will aptly avoid this tax just like they do all the others, and the hapless hoi palloi who might have to leave their home vacant for 6 months (e.g. to care for a dying relative) would be stuck paying the fine. Sounds about right :-(
You can certainly get a "mortgage" on a stock portfolio. It's called trading on margin and the interest rates are even better.
But it's true you can't get quite as much leverage and the dividends and capital gains are not tax deductible like they are for your primary residence.
No, Libertarians would not support this. The reason why there are empty properties is that there are capital controls so severe that it's more lucrative to buy a house (and not rent it) as a store of value than a currency/stock/precious asset (gold,bitcoin etc). A law -- which didn't account for the second-order detriments -- created this perversion in the market. Adding another law -- which again won't account for the second-order detriments -- is not going to fix it. Less is more, when it comes to economic law.